Sanctuary
by jhalya
Summary: The children of tomorrow have a different view on their eerie world. hayj's "Only fools..." sequel, PB/Pred 2010 AU
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N_: this is for you, hayj, not an update, but a sequel, because it wouldn't let me be!**

**_Translation:_ I 'jacked hayj's wonderful crossover _Only fools are enslaved by time and space_ and wrote sort of a sequel to it, featuring the Riddick kids (Jack, Marcus, Richard, Zoey) and Isabelle and Royce's Carrie and Mason/Mace. Nicknames are my own, the world is hayj's.**

**_Synopsis of "Only fools…": _Riddick, Carolyn, Royce, Isabelle and others are stranded on the alien game planet. Instead of being hunted, they become part of a Predator social experiment under the watch of the resident Pred, Bob. This is the story of their offsprings many years after the end of _Only fools…_**

* * *

_- **The children of tomorrow – **_

There was no possibility of escape, no chance of survival and as Marcus twisted his father's big hunting knife in the tender flesh of the deer-like creature in his grasp, he couldn't help but feel a strange sort of sympathy towards his catch, as if some part of him resonated with the anguish shining in the dying animal's eyes. It wasn't the biggest thing he'd ever caught in the domesticated jungles of the Sanctuary House Residential Complex – as Varro had so lovingly named the compound because he was a notorious sucker for attributing some type of pseudo-deep-shit meaning to the world around him via equally psycho-fuck denominations – not by far, nor was it the easiest to ensnare, but his mother had wanted something light for dinner. Watching the warm blood gush from where he'd nicked the sweet spot, Marcus heaved a deep sigh and wringed the animal's neck for good measure.

The world around him was quiet. And what a restrictive world it was. Though it seemed thick and in some parts, the greenery was so green as to look positively dark, the jungle near his home was not as wide as it was long – circling Sanctuary House like a perfect steel trap – and then tightening in a single cord that connected Marcus's world to a vast and never-ending ocean, across which only his mind could travel. And Bob, of course, if he could get his heavily horned head out of his alien shit hole and call down a sweet Pred ride over the green-blue expanse of water and through the planet clustered skies. And then space… of which Marcus's mother sometimes spoke off, when he'd been particularly good. She told him mostly of the darkness and coldness of space, but in his mind, space was infinite and therefore knew no borders. Marcus lived a deeply caged life, he thought, and he had no tolerance for it. Never had. He'd slept with all doors and windows opened ever since he was old enough to claim his own bedding. And most of the times – for his home knew no harsh winters and only mildly pluvial autumns – he slept outdoors, his eyes ever fixed on the stars – lumbering moons and slowly revolving planets.

"Yo."

Marcus twitched, but didn't answer. He hoisted his prey onto his strong, broad shoulders and turned for where his home was, carefully sidestepping his younger sister. Marcus had an older brother, Jack, and a younger one, named after his father. But the youngest of the Riddick children was a girl, three years and a half his junior and one – one! – centimeter taller. He loved her most of all. Not because she shared his colouring – their skin a permanent tan and their eyes blacker than that of their pansy blue eyed siblings – but because she shared his soul, his dreams, his hunger for freedom. At 15, Zoey was the absolute slave master, the final boss of the Riddick household, tall and fierce, unbending, unyielding, unless you were packing some serious buttercups. And by Bob, the girl could eat. Couple o'years ago, around the time of the last drop, a woman came by, the out-of-place, out-a-sort type, that gave half the compound food poisoning. A convicted nut case that one, but a brilliant chemist nonetheless, she taught Zoey how to "bake", on account of his baby sister's immunity. Zoey was magical, she said and the kids had laughed for days and days. But Marcus had waited – patiently – until the night he had pushed the woman's dead body down into the river and out into the sea. His sister had always been a quick study.

That night, Marcus had realized that the two of them were of a different stock to the rest of the kids in their generation. Their father too had looked at them with a queer glint in his shifting eyes. But he had said nothing, opting instead to take Marcus out with him on his regular runs and when Zoey had been old enough not to upset Mama anymore by her prolonged absence, her too. Marcus knew he also took Jack hunting as well, but in his brother, Marcus thought, his father had honed a different set of skills. Jack had always been the little man of the house, so, naturally, he could provide food and shelter for his family. He could provide warmth and affection. He could provide strength. Marcus, on the other hand, he just liked to kill his prey first and think about food later – Zoey was a bulldozer, she liked it her way.

"Thinking deep thoughts there, big brother?"

Lately, Zoey had gotten better at this whole stealth thing. Secretly, Marcus harboured the notion that she might have bullied Bob into showing the tricks, 'cause the big alien was such a softie for Carolyn's female offspring – but he didn't dare say it. He knew better.

Marcus shifted a little bit under the weight of the night's supper and smiled at his sister.

"Marcus."

"Yeah?"

"Fuck or fight, man. You're creeping me out!"

Chuckling, Marcus shortened his stride so he was walking side by side with Zoey.

"You're barking off the wrong big brother, sis. Jack's the one screwing around, not me."

"He's pining after Carrie, bro. Show some consideration for your jilted brother."

Marcus had also pined after Carrie. And for a long time too. But he had been younger then. Still, his traitorous heart had stuttered the tiniest bit when Carrie and Jack broke off not even a month ago. Not as much as he thought it would, though.

"Don't worry, he's getting enough consideration from the Vargas girls. And their cousins."

Zoey snorted, "My brother – the family man!", and the two of them started laughing in earnest.

"Easy there, you two! That's our dinner you're jiggling there!" their mother called from the yard. She had the spit all prepped up and waiting for Marcus's catch, the warm weather outside allowing for a table on the terrace. Her children had swept in the house along with the dusk, but even with her failing vision, she marveled at how alike they were, despite the age gap. Seeing them work in tandem – carefully disemboweling and cutting up the deer, one perfectly sized slice of meat at a time – reading each other's minds and covering each other's blind spots, their movements a hallucinatory display of skill and coordination, Carolyn Fry feels small and helpless, cowering in the shadows of monsters. She loves her children and is afraid of them all at once, because they are not entirely human – born on an alien world, with a glorified alien babysitter that shoots blades out of his wrist sharper than the shivs Riddick fashioned for them on their birthdays. Matching shivs for matching souls – two powerhouses with edges that cut when she tried to fit them in what was now her world.

"Mace came by while you were out", Carolyn starts.

"Yeah, what'd he want?"

"Royce wants to head out and stir that heard of wildebeests our way. He thought you guys might want to join'em."

"So, what did Jack say?"

"Jack's not here and Mace was asking for you!"

Zoey chanced a look at Marcus and thought she saw a stir. She'd have pushed, but even with her back turned, she could tell Mama was wrinkling her nose in disapproval. She knew where Jack hung out these days and if Zoey knew her mother well, she probably had Bob record the whole debauchery of it just so she could shove it in her father's face and accuse him of aiding and abating illicit 'acts of godliness', whatever that meant in their parents codified talk.

"Mace has been asking for you quite a lot these days. Could it be that he wants to make you his cowgirl?" Marcus surprisingly piped in with a stellar lack of humour.

"You mad, bro?"

"I'm a holding a knife, Zoey Bug. Go ahead, make my day."

"Put that thing away before I decide to hurt you."

"_Fight! Fight! Fight!_"

"Can it, Richie B!" the arguing siblings yelled at their brother.

Richie snickered and swished a bucket of milk as he trudged good-naturedly in the yard.

"You guys are so funny. And by funny, I mean not. What's for dinner, I'm hungry. Hey mom, where's dad? Is Jack back from tapping ass?"

"Richard Brandon Riddick, I'll have none of that talk in this house!"

His mother was a pulsating blonde volcano stirring up tongues of fire.

"Sorry, mom…" Richie B bellowed from the bowels of the house.

"He took the bucket inside, didn't he?" Zoey chimed in. And right on cue, Richie casually walked out of the house, still swinging the bucket of milk and tread into the circle of fire his wild mother was tending to.

"Here you go, mom, the milk you asked for." He slapped a smooch on her cheek and pated her head reassuringly. "And don't worry, Jack should be done by now. He'll be as good as gold in no time, you'll see! Isn't that him walking his weary pompous butt over our way, right there?" and Richie B waved enthusiastically.

"Whore house, bro, is…that way!"

Carolyn promptly smacked him across his head, which only managed to widen her youngest son's semi-permanent smirk further more.

"Sorry, mom…"

Marcus remembered many a times when Richie B had walked away from a mother of scolding with a "sorry, mom…" and a smile at the corner of his lips. He'd developed wrinkles at the corner of his light blue eyes from all the grinning, and smirking and laughing that he did. His baby brother was a laugh. But in a good way. In a way Marcus knew he could never hope to be.

Carolyn was ready to pounce on her eldest when Zoey stepped in, after having waited for Jack to get _that _close to the loose gates of their estate, and raised a perfectly capable of bitch slapping the sleazy cousin-fucker into the next moon hand to Jack's rather bemused face.

"Hold it! This is a no go area for toxic waste!"

Jack managed an impressive "wha'?" even though he had to look a bit up to say it. He may have been fit and buff, but slim and ridiculously tall was not his thing.

"Wipe off that pu…" – her mother growled in the background – "…_putrid_ stench down by the river and I'll think about letting you sit for dinner."

"This is stupid. Le'go" and Jack swatted at her offending appendage. Zoey slammed a fist in his gut.

Zoey and Jack never really fought. They more or less…brawled. Split lips, black eyes, broken ribs, that sort of thing. Their father had once sat on the side and thrown a bottle of aged whiskey – one of Bob's strange courtesies – at them for the "added effect". He'd laughed his booming laugh until his sides hurt from the broomstick Carolyn had used on him when she'd walked in on the whole mess. Riddick had simply stated then that they've got to learn to hold their own in a fight. And the truth of the matter was that they continued to learn off of each other for years to come. Marcus envied his brother for that. Zoey never fought him, not even when he wanted her to. Probably because with him it would be the real deal and not the sibling entertainment she practiced with Jack. Zoey was his final boss, Marcus had a feeling deep in his bones, bones that were fashioned in her likeness. Whatever he was to encounter in the years to come, whatever opponent he would face, none would be on par with Zoey. An animal is only at its bets while it's hunted, Bob used to say in his weird patched up voice. His hunter was Zoey.

When enough blood was shed, Zoey and Jack broke off with minimum damage to Carolyn's nerves. Human beings were so adaptable, the woman mused. Ten years ago she would've fretted over each scrapped knee – and there had been many. Now, she patiently waited for her kids to settle down, blood free and smelling of rosy innocence before sitting all of them at her table and starting to behave like family. Now, she was happy for each day she still had them all together. For she knew…those days were growing shorter still.

* * *

Riddick padded silently into his house. He'd been late for dinner and judging by the tracks near the gate, he'd also missed a bit of a show. Experience told him he'd be right on time for an angry wife. A pair of silvery eyes – so much like his own, but rather more half asleep – flashed in the darkness of his home and he ruffled the boy's head.

"G'nite, dad…" and finally Marcus turned in for the warm Sanctuary night.

* * *

**A/N: I might revisit this…**


	2. Chapter 2 Lament

**A/N: Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year, Sanctuary style! Well, aren't you all surprised! But, I warned you I might revisit this! Truth be told, I've been working on this piece for a long time and today finally Marcus decided to cooperate and let me write it out. The dialogue still feels a little choppy and the extra bit at the end is a tad pointless, but, what the heck, it felt wrong without it:)**

**DISCLAIMER: not mine! and there are a lot of references in this chapter that came from brighter minds than mine.  
**

**THANKS: hayj, your fat Riddick babies are giving me hell! but I'm loving every single second of it!  
**

**REMINDER: the Riddick kids: Jack, Marcus, Zoey and Richie B. / Royce & Isabelle's kids: Carrie (sporting a brand new full name in this one), Mace and Arianna (sporting a brand new nickname)  
**

**Enjoy**

* * *

They were saying bad things about the Riddick children.

"I mean Richie B is coming into his own quite nicely I might add'' - and, sure enough, one of the more non-descript girls just _had _to giggle at Big Ramona's less than innocent comment - ''and Jack's real sweet on the eyes'' - Big Ramona winked at Carrie's promptly flushing face - ''but the others..."

For all her nerve, Big Ramona - who was irregularly big and in the right places too - didn't have the guts to finish that line of thought, even in the safety of an all girls night out.

But Carrie, who had no clue herself as to why she had dumped Jack more than four months before and who, for all intents and purposes, had grown up with all four of the Riddick siblings, couldn't find her words either. Agreement stifled the air and, hidden in the shadows outside the ring of fire, Ari had had quite enough. She immediately pegged the pretty girl looking all confused a traitor and swore to cut off the blood ties that had made her Carrie's younger sister. Out loud she said nothing though - Arianna was small and mousy and had wiggled her way in the sisters club thanks to Carrie and a bit of divine Mom intervention and the other girls didn't pay much attention to her anyway - but in her heart of hearts, Royce and Isabelle's youngest daughter was pleading her biggest case yet. Arianna tended to scowl when she'd hit a particularly juicy argument, which only served to graft a perpetual frown on her tiny, childish face.

"Zoey's always been nice enough to us" Carrie finally chirped in. She had such a bird like voice, both melodic and intensely annoying at times. And Ari was annoyed: not at the lie, but at the way everyone knew it was a lie. Their parents were great friends, but the truth was Zoey had been mostly unconcerned with Aunt Izzie's eldest kids and had made a pet out of Ari virtually since the moment the small, sickly child had been able to walk and talk properly only because, people thought, Zoey was strange like that and she was denied a dog after the last strays she picked up expired within a radically short period of time. But actually, Ari hadn't and still didn't mind at all. She got more attention from Zoey than she did from her own siblings.

Now, Carrie wasn't truly heartless, Ari knew, and she was a decent enough sister, but because Arianna had been that much younger and so much more burdensome than her brother Mace, what with her smallness and sickliness and constant need for care and attention - of the medical type - Carrie had not much bothered with her. Ari suspected Carrie hadn't actually expected her to live as long as she had. Not on this planet, where everybody was a predator on standby. And then when Ari did live past the initial gloomy expectations, she'd been only another helping hand around the house that freed Carrie to do the things she hadn't had the time to do before. A tag along at the local gossip mill was, after all, a small price to pay and Ari was sure her chores for the foreseeable future were growing exponentially in Carolyn Two's – and wouldn't the girls be dying to know what Carrie's middle name actually was – budding adult mind.

"Zoey isn't nice to anybody!" Big Ramona spit out hatefully.

The girls around her shivered and fiddled embarrassingly in their seats. Sure, Zoey walked her own brand of swag among the people of Sanctuary, but she'd never been purposefully mean to any of them like Big Ramona sometimes was. If anything, Zoey simply didn't care one way or the other and singled no one out, choosing to diss it out equally among the people that pissed her off. Which weren't that many, given the sharp survival instincts honed into the residents of Sanctuary by the years they had spent on the hostile planet. And yeah, sure, everybody blew off some steam and talked at corners about Zoey Riddick hardballing left and right, but nobody said anything out right and mean it. Not like Big Ramona was doing right now. Big Ramona said it like she meant it. And she wasn't finished.

"And that brother of hers!", now Big Ramona was really getting wound up, "Marcus ain't nothing but a creep and everybody knows it."

"He's just...you know...the quiet type…" Carrie quickly found herself saying while somewhere in the back of her mind her life was flashing before her eyes at the thought of this conversation drifting off to Marcus's ears.

"Yeah right, the quiet creep type!"

There was silence, ominous and deep. Ari burst out laughing.

For a moment even Carrie was a bit baffled, before big sister mode kicked in.

"Arianna!"

Ari reigned her humour in and stood up, facing a startled Big Ramona full on, even though she fell a handful of centimeters short of the girl's dark rimmed eyes.  
"You're only saying this cause Marcus wouldn't creep out on you at last week's yard party."

A collective _ohhhhh _whooshed out of the girls around. They'd been there, they'd seen Big Ramona casting her curvy shadow on to Marcus. And they'd all seen him walk away in the general direction his sister might be in. Back then they'd cracked perv jokes and moved on. Now, things made another type of sense.

But Big Ramona wasn't having any of it.  
Her face went all blotchy and red, the humiliation burning from deep inside onto her rather tender complexion. Her bosom heaved also.

"And you'd know, wouldn't you? Always tailing his trail. And he never cares for little mousy Ari! " Big Ramona finished with a pointed look at Ari's flat chest.

"Look, Ramona, Ari and I, we grew up with these kids and..."

"It's okay, Carrie! She's right. About everything. Including my flat chest," Ari smiled. She'd heard those jokes before.

"I actually agree with you, Ramona. Zoey is mean. Marcus is strange and all that. He could bend and break you with his thumb. Zoey'd rip your spine out for fun. So, if you want to play hardball with the pros, you'd better be prepared. And you're nowhere near prepared. You're just bitter and sore. My advice to you: find somebody else to rub your pussy right and clam the fuck up, because you're spitting in kinda hard and nobody here's gonna step in to unjinx your janx when shit heats the metaphorical fan. And by that, I mean when I let it slip just how good of an opinion you have about my childhood friends."

Carrie chocked on air, but Big Ramona was speechless, with a look in her eyes that reminded Arianna of the dears Mom shot just before the bullet hit the target. It was a haunted look and Ari's fingers twitched around the imaginary trigger of the shotgun she'd left at home, neatly hung on a peg by the door, next to Mace's overcoat. To her left, Ari could feel Carrie straining to say something, _anything, _ but a lean, mean and hungry animal was beginning to stir in the depths of Arianna's soul, so she simply turned her back to the girls huddled around the campfire and walked away, out of the light and into the darkened path that led to her house. Anger, deep and raw, was setting her blood on fire.

Not that it hurt, but Big Ramona's words had hit a sore spot and Ari's temper was threatening to spill over. People were quick to judge when someone was as tiny and skinny and deceptively frail as Arianna was. She'd been sick for so long, not many noticed when she started to actually feel better or how she was the sharpest shooter in Sanctuary – slow, smooth and fast. Only Marcus had_ always_ been kind to Ari, but then again, he was generally nice to kids and local pet like animals. His own mother often called him on his soft spot for all types of defenseless things, saying it was an odd thing to take after his father. But whereas Riddick goofed around with the kids in his sector, Marcus was gentler, as if they might break if he touched them. Marcus was trying to shelter them from the growing darkness within him. And Arianna wanted to punch him in the face every time he did it to her. She had turned 15 a couple of months ago and still for Marcus she was Zoey's cute little pet friend.

"Well, fuck it!"

Arianna stomped her feet and felt the absurd urge to plop down and sulk in the middle of the dirt road connecting the Vargas Compound to the First Settlers Avenue. The Latinos of Sanctuary had built themselves a small citadel, thriving on moonshine, arms dealership and whoring. Kids knew that and still it was the best hang-out spot in town. Mostly because their parents avoided it, unless they were going there to pick a fight. And after Royce and Riddick picked a few fights when the girls turned a dangerous age, people left the kids – all kids – alone.

"Ari! Ari, you stop right there!"

Carolyn Two was running after her – damn, she was a good sprinter - but Arianna knew there'd be hell to face if her sister turned up home without little Ari in tow.

"You go back! I'll just tell mom I got bored and came back early."

"Are you effin' crazy?! What was that all about? You got a death wish or something? Christ, I had to apologize to all my friends just cause my little sister has a potty mouth, and I'm still gonna be the one getting heat from mom? You look at me when I'm talking to you, Arianna!"

Carolyn Two reached to grab Ari's arm, but she spun so fast, Carrie didn't even register the sting when Ari slapped her hand away. Her baby sister, a mess of dirty brown locks and frayed white cotton, was an angry little animal ready to pounce and claw at her face.

"Just…go back! Go back and play nice with your girl friends and I'll tell mom you brought me home. But. Just. Go. Deal with your shit, Carrie, and I'll deal with mine and tomorrow we'll be right back at doing the whole happy family gig."

"But you won't…I mean you wouldn't…"

"Fuck you over to Marcus?"

Carolyn Two winced at Arianna's crude choice of words but swallowed and nodded nonetheless.

"No." Ari took a deep breath, closed her eyes and plunged. "He likes you, you know."

"I know."

It was still dark on the dirt road when Ari opened her eyes to her sister's honest face, despite the flood lights casting a neon yellow glow over the Sanctuary night.

"Then why…"

"Fear", Carolyn Two shrugged. "I'm not gonna make no excuses for that. I can't control it."

Ari was stunned.

"Look, I'm going back. You sure you okay on your own?"

"Yeah." A breath. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"'Kay" and Carolyn Two sprinted back towards the Compound where probably Big Ramona was shooting shit sky high.

Ari snorted.

"Fear…yeah, right! And I fell off a fucking dinosaur!"

Behind Ari, the dirt road sloped towards the First Settlers Avenue, past the cattle enclosure and the wired fence at the edge of the force field marking the boundaries of Sanctuary, on to the two ranch like settlements that belonged to her father and Riddick and stopping right past Aunt Carolyn's neat yard, where the jungle sprawled for miles and miles, round the whole planet. That was where the game preserve started. That was where the Hunt happened. The place Arianna was never meant to go.

Bob usually prowled those parts. And sometimes, more of Bob's kind. Though, as far as the Agreement went, Preds weren't allowed to hunt Sanctuary, but that didn't mean they didn't dangle the bait and on nights when the moons were plump and heavy and the air thick with heat, dwellers went missing, her mom got pissy, her dad was AWOL for weeks on end, her uncle Riddick went out to try out his toys, Marcus sported some fresh new scars and she was stuck shooting empty cans of soup from a distance while Zoey was providing distractions.

But even though she hit her marks from close to a mile away, she was never allowed into the jungle, unless her mother, her father or her uncles were with her. She sneaked out with Zoey a couple of times, shooting wild life close to the river, in the middle of the night, but Marcus had been so upset he'd literally lifted her up on his shoulders and hauled her ass back home, all the while barking at his sister to shut the fuck up and follow. She'd had a bruise for weeks from where he'd dumped her on her bedroom floor. Marcus had been quiet tip-toeing her into her own house, but the next day her mom had baked Marcus's favorite cranberry pie and sent her off with a big chunk of it to share with the Riddick's. Her uncle Riddick had smirked a wolfish sort of grin, but Aunt Carrie, bless her, had poured her a glass of milk and had seemed oblivious to her predicament. In the end, Marcus had taken pity on her, and between two bites of cranberry pie, he'd patted her head and had gone off to do his chores.

And that was the irrevocable end to her nightly escapades. Actually, Ari realized with a start, this was the first time she was alone after sun down on the dirt road in months. She wasn't afraid of the dark. But sometimes, the force field would stutter and sparks would shoot off like fireflies in the night. It was the younger ones, Ari thought as she made her way back home. Slimmer, leaner than Bob, with fewer crests on their helmets. Unblooded youth, looking for an easy mark. They crouched on the fence's beam polls, and taunted, playing back bits of recorded conversations, screams and shrills, throwing skinned carcasses of some of their fresher kills.

One of the more daring ones had preyed on their live stock for months before her dad had had enough. The young Pred's corps had hung from the polls for a week straight before it vanished out of sight, leaving only the visor, a small plasma cannon and a pair of wrist blades behind. Spoils of war, her uncle Riddick had laughed at her father, Royce. She remembered her dad casually throwing the visor over to her uncle with a half assed "You can keep it" and Riddick laughing in his wake, waving the visor around – "What? It's broken or something?" Her mother had always said that her dad and Riddick were _such friends._

Tonight, however, the fence stalkers weren't after the live stock. Ari felt the infrared gaze tracking down her movements. Her guess was it was the same one. Light grey armour and a symbol etched into his helmet. She could see the three dotted triangle dancing on her white cotton dress, settling over her heart, then jumping to her forehead, before a pop and a screech put an end to Varro's house cat's brief existence.

"I could do that with a fifty year's old sniper rifle, ass hole." Arianna called back.

"Do what?"

Ari jumped with a muffled oath when, instead of the Pred's choppy prerecorded voice, Marcus answered back. She hadn't seen, nor heard him coming, although there was nothing to block her view ahead. He strolled over to her, his mercurial eyes trained on the rippling shadow on the fence. He had his hands tucked into his pockets and he seemed so relaxed, so at ease, that finally Ari realized that the Pred had knocked a few flood lights down the road, which made everything that much easier on Marcus's light sensitive eyes. She'd noticed that whereas before Marcus had no problems during the day, his eyes a luminous dark brown, lately he'd started squinting, an iridescent sheen permanently etched into his irises. He'd been a whole lot grumpier of late, so Ari figured he'd hurt.

But now, his eyes shone with no twinge of pain, which meant he could see her stalker better than she could. And she had perfect 20-20 vision.

"_Your uncle Riddick, he isn't exactly like us_", her mom had told her when Ari had seen what hid behind his unnerving goggles for the first time. "_He's more like a distant cousin_" her father had added from across the kitchen table. "_A very, __**very **__distant cousin_."

Just like Marcus, who was _very, __**very **_different from the other kids his age. Right now, though, he was pretty close to her.

"Watcha doing all alone out here?"

He dropped an arm across her shoulders, pulling her into his body warmth, until she was sure they were just a giant splurge of red in the Pred's vision as opposed to two different people. His voice had an edge, a bonafide Marcus-will-lecture-you-about-this-later tone in it, but his touch was soothing, even tough he was still watching the fence intently.

"Going home. Was tired of waiting for Carrie to break her curfew."

"Hm." This close, Marcus smelled like the mint her Aunt Carrie grew in the back yard. Mint and smoke from the countless fires Marcus stocked with every round he made in the jungle.

"Well, come on then, let's go home."

He ushered her down the road, his arm still carelessly looped around her neck and shoulder, and started to walk towards their houses with only a passing glance to the dead cat in the grass by the side of the dirt road. Arianna strained a little, her strides so much shorter than his, but fell into synch after Marcus unconsciously matched her pace.

Ari was amazed at how calm he was, what with a Pred sporting a live gun not ten feet away. Sure, he was in the line of fire, his much larger body sheltering hers from the blasted kill mark, but she was starting to get a bit edgy.

"Marcus…" she tried, but he just looked down at her and smiled.

"I think you've got a stalker," he drawled in his best Marcus Riddick voice.

Arianna turned red and started squirming out of his hold, but Marcus just flexed a muscle and she stilled.

"You want him?"

Clearly, Marcus was having a field day with this. She could sense amusement dripping from every word he said.

"I want him dead!" Ari managed to squeeze behind clenched teeth. Her anger was getting the better of her and the better of the situation, considering Marcus had not lessened his hold on her, his body warmth was seeping into her – cause, yeah, he was still holding her that close – and they had already passed her house and were steadily moving towards his.

"Good, you're on a roll today."

"What's that supposed to mean?" and just like that Ari planted her two feet firmly on the ground and refused to move. Marcus stopped and his arm slid from across her shoulder right through her hair. Ari let out a breath she wasn't even aware that she was holding, but despite the fact that the flood lights near his house were mildly annoying, Marcus still looked a whole lot entertained.

"Just sayin' soon we're gonna be comparing body counts if you keep up shooting bullets left and right like that."

"I didn't shoot the bloody cat!"

"Not this one you didn't."

"That was an accident! I even apologized!"

"Good girl. But I didn't mean the cat."

"What?!"

Ari's fingers twitched again, the imaginary slide and pull of a smooth trigger cramping up her hands, and Marcus noticed, almost as if he'd been waiting for it. A smirk curled up his lips and he pointed it out.

"There you go again. You don't talk the talk as good as you think you do and really I should wash your mouth off with some of Zoey's special brand of soap, but you do walk the walk and don't you think Big Ramona noticed how you were eyeing the piece right next to her box of tortillas? These Vargas girls, they speak 9 millimeters too."

"You were there."

"Just passing through."

Ari was mortified. Her eyes went wide and the redness that had steadily crept up her cheeks was now painting her eyeballs in a nice pink colour. She had seen the piece, just like Marcus said, but it didn't nearly have enough fire power to match the anger she had felt towards Big Ramona. The sheer…jealousy she had harboured inside her heart ever since she'd seen the other girl harassing Marcus at the yard party. Because although Ari had been right about Marcus not wanting to creep out on Big Ramona, that didn't mean that he'd been sullen about it.

They'd flirted. They'd touched. Marcus had smiled. His eyes had had a predatory glint in them she'd seen in other boys his age when they looked at a girl they…_wanted._ To do stuff with. Stuff Marcus would never want to do with her, with little mousy Ari.

Arianna thought she might start crying. She balled her fists and willed her tears to crawl back up her tear ducts. If she started crying in front of Marcus now, she might as well stamp "Forever a kid" onto her forehead. Her jaws locked and she even stopped breathing for a while.

But Marcus seemed only to be further incensed by her antics. He was trying really hard to suppress a bout of laughter and Ari could tell by the way his shoulders were shaking with barely concealed mirth.

"I hate you!" she exploded.

"I know. But you really don't."

"If I could, if I had this power, this…this power to grow bigger and stronger, I'd strangle you! With my bare hands, just choke the…gall…out of you and hang you out dry for all the world to see!"

At this, Marcus did chuckle. His laugh, however, was infuriating and defeating all at the same time.

"But I don't. Even if I do grow taller, I'll never grow tall, like Zoey, or pretty, like Carrie. I'll always be scrawny. I won't ever be enough. I won't ever go hunting. I'll live my whole life here, I'll bed and breed and watch you leave. And then I'll die. Sooner than everybody else, cause of my sickliness, but I will have died long before that. I may just as well die tonight."

And Ari closed her eyes. Surely no one had ever died of mortification, but Marcus might get bored and leave and then she'd take that Pred on. Give him a nice good mark to hit. Of course, she'd take a shot at him too, but she wouldn't struggle _too_ much. It would be a whole lot like triage, make the choice her mother couldn't make when she'd been but a speck of cells floating in her mom's womb.

Marcus poked her hard on the forehead.

"Aww!"

"Thought you might've fallen asleep on me."

"I wasn't!"

"Great, then stop thinking deep thoughts cause you're only sprouting nonsense."

"I was going through an existential crisis, you asshole!"

Marcus snorted and pulled her under his arm again. This time it felt real heavy on her shoulders.

"I don't care, your opinions are rejected. Richie B. had an existential crisis once. Zoey threatened to drown him in the milk bucket. Do _you_ want to drown in the milk bucket?"

"You're fucking with me, I know you are."

"You know I am?"

Ari eyed him dubiously, her stare unflinching, but still somewhat cute.

Marcus smiled and hugged her tighter as he steered them towards his house.

"Yeah, okay, I am. But I wasn't kidding about the soap. You've got the naughtiest mouth I've ever heard."

And damn, didn't that sound like a compliment when he said it just right! Ari wobbled a little, due to a metaphorical arrow of weakness to the knees.

"I thought we were going home…" Ari finally croaked out, as Marcus opened the gate to his yard.

"We are. Mom's making spiced noodles. You like spiced noodles."

When Marcus turned to close the gate behind them, his eyes scanned the darkness ahead and he must have been satisfied about something, because the hand still hooked around her gently brushed the nape of her neck. Tenderly, reassuringly. Invitingly.

"Now, listen up, you scrawny hooligan, about this stalker of yours…"

Arianna beamed. Maybe for Marcus, she'd be enough.

* * *

_Meanwhile, the parents  
_

"You're seeing this, right?"

Isabelle's hushed _Yes _echoed next to Royce's determined _No!_

"I sure as hell am." Riddick piped in. "He's got his hand right…"

"Where it shouldn't fucking be!"

"You slept half naked with my wife and I let it slide. My boy is feeling up your daughter so learn to suck it like a man!"

"Boys, please, no bringing prison issues into this."

"That's the second time one of your boys is going first base on one of my girls, asshole, and Carolyn wasn't even your fucking wife at that time!"

"First, second, third, I got plenty of boys left, and your girls don't seem to mind all that much!"

"Motherfu…"

"Mooooommmmm! The noodles are on fire!"

"Oh, fffffffffffff….."

The (rather pointless) End

* * *

**Review?**


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